The Polari Prize Omnishambles

Or how not to handle a free speech crisis...

Let’s say you run an art gallery, or a theatre, or a festival, or a literature prize. And one day you find yourself faced with activist protests because one of your artistic choices has caused offence. Religion used to be the third-rail subject, but today offence is most likely linked to race or transgender issues. However you’ve transgressed - whether you’re deemed racist or transphobic - a community of noisy activists is ever-ready to reach for their pitchforks and flaming torches.

What should you do if this happens to you?

A useful case study is unfolding at the moment. The Polari Prize is a competition for LGBTQ+ authors, founded fifteen years ago by writer and former journalist Paul Burston. On 1st August the Prize announced its long list of twenty-four authors. Among them was John Boyne, a gay author who holds gender-critical views and (shock, horror!) is also a friend of J.K. Rowling. By 7th August the backlash had begun, with some familiar faces from trans activism taking to social media to demand Boyne’s expulsion. One of the judges and several writers withdrew their participation.

The prize’s first public statement on the controversy asserted its ‘cherishing’ of freedom of expression alongside values of diversity and inclusion. Crucially, the statement was clear about the integrity of the selection process:

The books are read and deliberated over by the jury, and progress through the competition stages on the merits of craft and content…John Boyne’s novel Earth was included on The Polari Prize longlist on merit as judged by our jury, following the process and principles stated above.

So far, so good. And the statement got even better:

It is inevitable given the challenges we face and the diversity of the lived experience we now represent under the LGBTQ+ Polari umbrella, that even within our community, we can at times hold radically different positions on substantive issues. This is one of those times.

To the average person in the street who has not experienced today’s LGBTQ+ community in all its totalitarian awfulness, this statement might sound unremarkable. But, since the metastasising of progressive politics into so-called “woke” roughly a decade ago, some activist communities are dedicated not to persuasion or argument but to denunciation and punishment. Nevertheless, the Polari Prize planted its banner in the ground - this, it trumpeted, is a literature prize which stands for diversity of thought and free expression.

Unfortunately, the prize organisers did not stand by these words. It took only four days - four! - for these brave defenders of freedom to decide that, actually, they weren’t that keen on taking a stand for free expression after all. Trans activist reaction to their statement had been immediate and furious with more authors pulling out, taking the total withdrawals to ten of the twenty-four, along with two judges.

Faced with multiple desertions, the Polari Prize abandoned its initial position, apologised to “trans and non-binary writers and communities” and promised “a full review of the prize processes, consulting representatives from across the community ahead of next year’s awards, taking on board the learnings from this year.”

But the author withdrawals continued, reaching sixteen by the 14th August. Four days after that, the Polari Prize published its third statement, apologising again for ‘hurt and anger’, and disclosing that:

Many discussions have been undertaken over the last two weeks - with authors, judges, stakeholders, and funders - about the impacts and ramifications of the longlisting of John Boyne’s novel and how we can learn from this experience and move forwards.

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To create a literature prize is to claim a right to foster and shape literary culture - to influence which books get noticed and which books do not. The impact of a prominent literature prize gradually extends further upstream, eventually influencing which books get published and which do not. Faced with a free expression controversy, a literature prize must do more than seek its own survival.

In today’s toxic cancel-culture, artistic careers are damaged and destroyed by authoritarian activists, and the book world is particularly cursed in this respect¹. Once the Polari Prize attracted the attention of the mob, its first responsibility was to John Boyne, and the prize’s initial statement, which stood solidly behind Boyne and the judging process as a whole, seemed to recognise this.

In its second public statement, the Polari Prize did not just apologise to its tormentors - it inverted the bully/bullied power relationship, coddling the very authoritarians who were the cause of its woes:

The past few weeks have been extremely difficult for the trans and non-binary writers and communities associated with the Polari Prize. The hurt and anger caused has been a matter of deep concern to everyone associated with the prize, for which we sincerely apologise.

By the prize’s third public statement, the organisers were fully submissive, announcing the cancellation of the 2025 prize:

…while we increase representation of trans and gender non-conforming judges on the panels for all the awards and undertake a governance and management review to include our aims and values and work to better support everyone within our LGBTQ+ Polari community.

In the end, it took less than a fortnight for the Polari Prize to shift from defending free expression to offering giving its tormentors a right of veto over the prize’s future author selection. By apologising to its bullies, the Polari Prize has legitimised the charge of transphobia levelled at John Boyne and proved that bullying gets results. In trying to get themselves off the hook, the prize organisers have further encouraged those responsible for the censorious culture which already dominates the book business.

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How could it have been different?

In 2019, Leeds Literature Festival - a tiny organisation without a large budget or any permanent staff - invited former Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray to appear. The announcement of her inclusion in the festival provoked an angry response from Leeds’ trans and non-binary activist community who organised online and initiated an open letter demanding Murray’s invitation be rescinded. Some arts organisations in the city joined the campaign seeking Jenni Murray’s cancellation. In essence, this was the same situation as that faced by the Polari Prize, but on a slightly smaller scale.

Leeds Literature Festival did everything right. The organisers did not apologise. They stood their ground, supported Murray through the process, and presented a successful event. The protests continued throughout the pre-festival period and the festival itself, but Leeds Literature Festival just carried on.

Ultimately, the best response when faced with authoritarian activists is straightforward but requires courage and calm nerves;

1. Say nothing to inflame the situation, but do not apologise

2. Carry on with exactly what you were doing

That’s it.

To submit to activist demands, as the Polari Prize has done, is to feed the totalitarian beast. Those who do so tend to be consumed by it anyway. Worse, every act of appeasement fosters an increasingly intolerant culture within which those who seek to control what others think, speak, and write gain ever more power.

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1. The list of writers who have been on the sharp end of this kind of activism includes Jenny Lindsay, Gillian Philip, Magi Gibson, Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, Sybil Ruth, Helen Joyce, Victoria Smith, Rachel Rooney, Sarah Ditum, Joan Smith, Kate Clanchy, Jenni Murray, and - of course, J.K. Rowling. Publishers have attracted similar treatment - Ursula Doyle was vilified for publishing Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls.